School continues with makeover

Looking around the school, it may seem like the beautification process has stopped, but little changes are slowly being made.

One of the most noticeable changes is removal of the falcon painting that was at the front of the school near the gym. The wall now reads “Saratoga High School, est. 1959.”

“This lets people know where you are because when you pulled up to the school before, it was not quite clear,” principal Jeff Anderson said.

The school is also trying to put in planter boxes in the areas that have previously been only dirt to brighten up the school.

“Our hope is that over the next year, we will be able to get the plants placed,” assistant principal Kevin Mount said.

A small project that the school recently tackled is the area near the copy center. It has been repainted and new plants have been planted.

“There was an old tree that was dead,” Mount said. “The cement was also messed up and it was pretty gross.”

To fix this, the maintenance crew took out the dead tree and planted a new tree and shrubbery. New cement was put in so that no one would trip over the uneven surface.

The administration says it is working hard to fix as many areas they can as quickly as possible and make the school as pleasant as possible.

“The money comes and goes, so we can’t do everything at once,” Anderson said. “The other problem is we don’t have the manpower; we’re doing stuff every day to keep [the school] in good condition. We can’t just drop everything and tackle all the projects, so we have to do them over time.”

It will cost $60,000 to finish painting the school an earth tone beige color, which includes some of the hallways and the backside of the school. Many of the doors will also be painted gray.

The administration will not be painting the library walls because it already fits in with the color scheme, but they will be painting the trim on the building.

The school has been talking to some parent groups in hopes of raising more money for the school beautification, but nothing has been finalized yet. Administrators also have been going to the district and the Saratoga High School Foundation, which paid for part of the first half of the beautification.

“The goal is to have the school painted by the end of the year,” Anderson said. “But now, school is in session so I can’t have painters running around.”

The administration is planning have the school painted over the long breaks, when there won’t be many students to interfere with the painting.

If the school is not able to get all of the money need, it is likely that they will have the custodians and the maintenance crew paint the walls, while paying a paint crew to paint the harder sections such as the trim of buildings.

“This is not ideal, because it’s nice to have a paint crew come in and do it right, clean it and make sure it’s done well,” said Anderson. “I’d rather have professionals do it to ensure we have a good paint job.”

Even though the school currently does not have enough money to complete the job, Anderson is staying positive.

“If we can have the school painted by the end of the year,” said Anderson, “and hit as many of the dry, dead areas as we can and try to beautify them, our school will soon be looking pretty good.”